Victim of brutal strangling left with nightmares of attacker as Hannibal Lecter

A court heard how the victim thought she was going to die and was so traumatised that she has since suffered from continuous nightmares.

Jason Langford, 38, attacked the woman at a house in Telford in March this year.

A court heard she was left with bruises and suffering from nightmares including one in which Langford appears as the character Hannibal Lecter from the movie thriller The Silence of the Lambs.

In a victim impact statement read out at a sentencing hearing at Shrewsbury Crown Court, she described how the defendant grabbed her by the throat three times and began squeezing "the life out of her" only stopping when another tenant at the house came to her rescue after hearing a commotion.

She said: "He was strangling me to the point where I couldn't breathe.

"I would never hurt myself, but his actions have left me questioning the reasons for living. I'm struggling to understand how close I came to dying. The last thing I would have seen in his eyes was the hate and rage in him."

For assault occasioning actual bodily harm, Langford, of Shawfield Close, Sutton Hill, was sentenced to 34 months' jail. For breaching a suspended sentence order given in May 2015 for an offence of harassment he was jailed for two months to run consecutively. He admitted the offences.

The judge Mr Recorder Martin Jackson told Langford after serving part of the term he will be released on licence. He was also given an indefinite restraining order.

Mr Jackson told him: "This is a category one offence. The victim said she thought she was going to be killed. I am satisfied that there was an intention to cause greater harm."